Early Relations between the United States and China. 19 



east. Her people had not come into intimate contact with their 

 equals in civilization until the nineteenth century. Their foreign 

 relations had been almost exclusively with tribes of inferior cvil- 

 ture, a culture which at its best was a crude copy of a Chinese 

 original. 



Although conquered at times, the sons of Han had always 

 assimilated their victors. The entire course of their history had 

 bred a profound contempt for all foreigners, and had led them 

 to apply to the latter the term "barbarian." It is not surprising, 

 therefore, that early modern relations with the Occident were 

 hampered by the conviction that foreigners were mercenary, inter- 

 ested only in trade, and beneath the contempt of the Chinese 

 gentry and literati ; that the China trade was necessary to their 

 very existence*" ; that they did not have the ability to learn to 

 read or to speak Chinese ; and that all embassies sent to Peking 

 came merely to bear tribute.** This contempt was mingled with 

 an undercurrent of annoyance. The Manchus were not a naval 

 power ; they were, in fact, utterly impotent on die sea,*^ and after 

 the piratical acts of many of the early European adventurers, 

 especially of the Portuguese, they felt it wise to limit western 

 merchants to as few ports as possible and to police them care- 

 fully while there, "lest they come and make trouble." Only the 

 strong commercial interests of the Chinese prevented the entire 

 prohibition of trade. 



The Chinese officials were lovers of money, and where trade 

 was once permitted their greed led to the imposition of as many 

 duties and exactions as possible, and to a venality so great that 

 by judicious bribery these same duties could be evaded and many 

 port regulations disregarded with impunity. 



^ An anonymous memorial to the Emperor said : "Inquiries have served 

 to show that the foreigners, if deprived for several days of the tea and 

 rhubarb of China, are afflicted with dimness of sight and constipation of 

 the bowels, to such a degree that life is endangered." The Chinese 

 Repository, Canton, 1822-1851. 7:311. 



^^ E. J. Eitel, Europe in China, The History of Hongkong from the 

 beginning to the year 1882, London and Hongkong, 1895, p. 12, gives a 

 good summary of the feeling as a whole. See too Chinese Repository, 

 passim, for official edicts on the China trade. 



" This their trouble with Koxinga in Formosa had shown them long 

 before. 



